Bill Clinton honors Srebrenica massacre victims

Saturday, July 11, 2015 - 00:46

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton joins tens of thousands to mark the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, as the remains of 136 newly identified victims are interred. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

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ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton joined tens of thousands at a cemetery near Srebrenica in Bosnia on Saturday (July 11) to mark the 20th anniversary of Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two.
Abandoned by their U.N. protectors towards the end of the 1992-95 war, 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces over five days, their bodies dumped in pits then dug up months later and scattered in smaller graves in a systematic effort to conceal the crime.
More than 1,000 victims have yet to be found.
A U.S.-brokered peace treaty ended the fighting and enshrined in Bosnia a complicated and unwieldy system of ethnic power-sharing that survives today.
"I grieve that it took us so long to unify all of your friends behind using the amount of force that was necessary to stop this violence. And I'm thrilled that the peace has been maintained," Bill Clinton, who was U.S. president at the time, told those gathered.
"On behalf of my country and from the bottom of my heart - I love this place. I never want to see a killing field like this within thousands of miles of here," Clinton added.
He also signed a book of condolences alongside former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
On Saturday, the remains of 136 newly identified victims were interred beneath marble gravestones in the Potocari memorial cemetery in eastern Bosnia, in what has become an annual ritual as graves continue to be uncovered.